Last Flight on B747 – KL685//686 – MEX @ Captain Anthon van Dijk

Captain Anthon van Dijk made his last 747 flight to Mexico City,together with his ‘Wingman’ captain Arno Keijzer and second officer Mart Vermeij.

In view of the 90% decline in flights and anticipated future capacity, KLM previously decided in early March that it would phase out its remaining Boeing 747s in April 2020,

instead of in the summer of 2021. Suddenly they had to operate their 747 farewell flight.

Flight KL685 ,at 20th of March 2020, got a RWY 36L departure with a smooth ‘wingroll salute’. This flight got operated with the B747-Combi reg. PH-BFV.

Backflight KL686 with callsign KLM72-Yankee arrived at Sunday 22rd of March with a delay and during sunset.

The crew which came to MEX with the PH-BFS was forced to turn back to Amsterdam. There was a coronavirus detected at an ATC center in US.

Finally they returned again to proceed the flight to MEX with an extra fuelstop in Miami.

During sunset Captain Anthon and Arno landed on RWY 18R ,operated with the B747-Combi reg PH-BFS.

The loss of around 90% of flights between Europe and Asia has resulted in a major shortage of cargo capacity. Meanwhile, the corona crisis has prompted an enormous need for the rapid

transportation of medical equipment and other supplies between the United States, Europe and China.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has now joined hands with Royal Philips and the Dutch government to create a special cargo air bridge between the Netherlands and China.

In addition to these parties, many others are seeking additional capacity. The air bridge to Asia will be launched on 13 April.

To maintain this vital cargo air bridge for the coming six to eight weeks, KLM will specially redeploy Boeing 747 Combi equipment for the service between the Netherlands and China.

This air bridge will ensure continuous availability of special cargo capacity, with two weekly flights to Beijing and three weekly flights to Shanghai.

This will ensure around 250 tonnes of extra cargo capacity each way per week.

The flights will supplement the current “skeleton schedule” that took effect on 29 March, with two weekly flights to Beijing and two weekly flights to Shanghai, operated with Boeing 787s and 777s.

The KLM/Martinair Full Freighters will continue to be deployed on North Atlantic routes, which Philips will use as an air bridge between Amsterdam and distribution points in the United States.

The Full Freighters will also continue to operate on South Atlantic routes and to destinations in Africa.

There might be a chance of another flight to Beijng or Shanghai the coming period……………….